All in the Family

Succession reminds us that family is forever

“The family is the test of freedom; because the family is the only thing that the free man makes for himself and by himself.” — G.K. Chesterton, 1919

This is not a pop culture newsletter — something that should be painfully obvious even if you only glance at the artwork in every issue.

Pop culture is akin to a digital watch. It gives us a precise measurement of the time we’re in, but, as David McCullough observed, “The digital watch is the perfect symbol of an imbalance in outlook in our day. It tells us only the time it is now, at this instant, as if that were all anyone would wish or need to know.”

This newsletter is a bridge that spans time, abutting the past on one end and the future on the other, firmly set on footings embedded in the present.

Therefore, when I wrote about Ted Lasso and hope, it was tied to William James and his study of athletes and their mentality at the turn of the 19th century.